Tough Jews
Fathers, Sons, and Ganster Dreams
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Narrated by:
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Rich Cohen
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By:
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Rich Cohen
About this listen
Award-winning writer Rich Cohen excavates the real stories behind the legend of infamous criminal enforcers Murder, Inc. and contemplates the question: Where did the tough Jews go?
In 1930s Brooklyn, there lived a breed of men who now exist only in legend and in the memories of a few old-timers: Jewish gangsters, fearless thugs with nicknames like Kid Twist Reles and Pittsburgh Phil Strauss. Growing up in Brownsville, they made their way from street fights to underworld power, becoming the execution squad for a national crime syndicate. Murder Inc. did for organized crime what Henry Ford did for the automobile, and Tough Jews is the first in-depth portrait of these men, a thrilling glimpse at the muscle that made possible the success of gangster statesmen such as Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano.
For Rich Cohen, who grew up in suburban Illinois in the 1980s taunted by the stereotype of Jews as book-reading rule followers, the very idea of the Jewish gangster was a relief; for once, a Jew in jail did not have to be a white-collar criminal. With a clear eye and a comic sensibility, Cohen looks beyond the blood and ultimately encounters each of these ruthless killers’ matzo-ball heart. Tough Jews shows what can happen when a member of the tribe combines brains, heart, and a dangerous determination never to back down.
©1998, 1999 Rich Cohen (P)2023 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
In the fall of 1941, a momentous trial was set to begin that threatened to end the careers and lives of New York’s most brutal mob kingpins. The lead witness, Abe Reles, had been a trusted executioner for Murder, Inc., the enforcement arm of a coast-to-coast mob network known as the Syndicate. But the man responsible for coolly silencing hundreds of informants was about to become the most talkative snitch of all. In exchange for police protection, Reles was prepared to rat out his murderous friends, from Albert Anastasia to Bugsy Siegel....
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4 out of 5 stars
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History from the bottom up
- By Mark on 12-12-21
By: Michael Cannell
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Gangster Squad
- Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles
- By: Paul Lieberman
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 95
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 89
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Story4 out of 5 stars 88
Gangster Squad chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O’Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick....
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3 out of 5 stars
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Nothing Like the movie
- By KEITH on 02-21-13
By: Paul Lieberman
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The Last Godfather
- The Rise and Fall of Joey Massino
- By: Simon Crittle
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Story4 out of 5 stars 99
As head of the Bonanno clan, Joey Massino was the last don, and ran his world with an iron hand - until he got hit with a murder rap, and turned on his own people. Here, for the first time, is his shocking true story - a glimpse inside the world of organized crime that we may never see again.
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1 out of 5 stars
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the 6th family
- By chris torkelson on 05-16-20
By: Simon Crittle
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Detroit
- An American Autopsy
- By: Charlie LeDuff
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,330
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,178
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,171
In the heart of America, a metropolis is quietly destroying itself. Detroit, once the richest city in the nation, is now its poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age - mass production, automobiles, and blue-collar jobs - Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, foreclosure, and dropouts. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark and the righteous indignation that only a native son can possess, journalist Charlie LeDuff sets out to uncover what has brought low this once-vibrant city, his city.
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3 out of 5 stars
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WOW
- By Avid Reader and Listener on 07-09-13
By: Charlie LeDuff
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Darktown
- A Novel
- By: Thomas Mullen
- Narrated by: Andre Holland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 710
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 641
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 636
Responding to pressure from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers. It's a victory of sorts, though the newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers, and their authority is limited: They can't arrest a suspect unless a white officer is present; they can't drive squad cars; they can't even enter the station through the front door.
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5 out of 5 stars
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EXCELLENT Historical Police Procedural
- By shelley on 12-13-17
By: Thomas Mullen
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Gaspipe
- Confessions of a Mafia Boss
- By: Philip Carlo
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 661
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 514
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 517
Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the boss of New York's Lucchese crime family, was a Mafia superstar, responsible for more than 50 murders. Currently serving 13 life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado, Casso has given journalist and New York Times best-selling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The author fails the objectivity test
- By William on 11-29-08
By: Philip Carlo
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The Vapors
- A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 220
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4 out of 5 stars 180
Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America's original national park - as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.
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1 out of 5 stars
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If you don’t live in Arkansas…
- By JohnFern0813 on 08-14-20
By: David Hill
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The Westies
- Inside New York's Irish Mob
- By: T. J. English
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 814
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 703
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 703
It's men like Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone who gave Hell's Kitchen its name. In the mid-1970s, these two longtime friends take the reins of New York's Irish mob, using brute force to give it hitherto unthinkable power. Jimmy, a charismatic sociopath, is the leader. Mickey, whose memories of Vietnam torture him daily, is his enforcer. Together they make brutality their trademark, butchering bodies or hurling them out the window.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great book
- By Julio on 06-28-18
By: T. J. English
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One Day
- The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America
- By: Gene Weingarten
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 141
On New Year’s Day 2013, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Gene Weingarten asked three strangers to, literally, pluck a day, month, and year from a hat. That day - chosen completely at random - was Sunday, December 28, 1986, by any conventional measure a most ordinary day. Weingarten spent the next six years proving that there is no such thing. That Sunday between Christmas and New Year’s turned out to be filled with comedy, tragedy, implausible irony, cosmic comeuppances, kindness, cruelty, heroism, cowardice, genius, idiocy, and much more....
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3 out of 5 stars
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I'm giving this book more credit for its concept
- By J. F. Boyd on 12-24-19
By: Gene Weingarten
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The Burning
- Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921
- By: Tim Madigan
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 313
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Story5 out of 5 stars 263
On the morning of June 1, 1921, a white mob numbering in the thousands marched across the railroad tracks dividing black from white in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and obliterated a black community then celebrated as one of America's most prosperous. The Burning will recreate the town of Greenwood at the height of its prosperity, explore the currents of hatred, racism, and mistrust between its black residents and neighboring Tulsa's white population, narrate events leading up to and including Greenwood's annihilation, and document the subsequent silence that surrounded the tragedy.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Hard to listen to, but a must read.
- By Amazon Customer on 06-17-20
By: Tim Madigan
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West of the West
- Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State
- By: Mark Arax
- Narrated by: Mark Arax
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 26
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story5 out of 5 stars 22
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, "When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West", and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it.
By: Mark Arax
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Lay Your Sleeping Head
- The Henry Rios Mysteries, Book 1
- By: Michael Nava
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Loved It
- By Leah Brock on 06-20-20
By: Michael Nava
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Trejo
- My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood
- By: Danny Trejo, Donal Logue
- Narrated by: Danny Trejo, Donal Logue
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 2,502
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,266
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2,268
On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The best book ever!
- By Nicolas Rocha on 07-08-21
By: Danny Trejo, and others
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Midnight in Mexico
- A Reporter's Journey through a Country's Descent into Darkness
- By: Alfredo Corchado
- Narrated by: Timothy Andres Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 432
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 383
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 379
Noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refuses to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. One night, Corchado received a tip that he could be the next target of the Zetas, a violent paramilitary group - and that he had 24 hours to find out if the threat was true. Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man's quest to report the truth of his country - as he races to save his own life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating & suspenseful historical non-fiction!
- By Ruth Barrie on 06-30-19
By: Alfredo Corchado
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Walking the Perfect Square
- A Moe Prager Mystery
- By: Reed Farrel Coleman
- Narrated by: Andy Caploe
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 116
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 116
Recently retired due to a freak accident, NYPD officer Moe Prager is lost. In pain and without the job he loves, Moe relunctantly settles on the notion of going into the wine business with his brother. But when a suburban college student vanishes off the streets of Manhattan, Prager's universe is turned upside down and his life changed forever. Hired by the student's desperate family, Moe plunges deep into the world of New York's punk underground, sex clubs, and biker bars.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Clever, Interesting, Satisfying
- By Ted on 06-12-12
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The Dillinger Days
- By: John Toland
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 554
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 509
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 509
For 13 violent months in the 1930s, John Dillinger and his gang swept through the Midwest. The criminals of the Depression robbed almost at will, as the Indiana State Police had only 41 members, including clerks and typists. Dillinger's daring escapes at Crown Point jail or through the withering machine gun fire of FBI agents at Little Bohemia Lodge, along with his countless bank robberies, excited the imagination of a despondent country.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Must have been written by Hoover
- By Jimmy Oneal on 09-03-20
By: John Toland
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The Good Assassin
- How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia
- By: Stephan Talty
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 239
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 208
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Story5 out of 5 stars 208
The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful: A complete history wrapped in a story
- By Aaron on 04-22-20
By: Stephan Talty
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